How to Forgive Even When You Can't Forget
How to Forgive
Even When You Can’t Forget™
Heal Your Heart, Free Your Attention and Move On.
Revision 1.01 - 12/17/2009
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Foreword
When I first had the idea to develop a subliminal audio CD for forgiveness I had no idea how big the topic would turn out to be. I realized that, especially when it comes to fulfilling your goals and dreams in life, most people will never get there because they've focused their attention on incidents from the past. It's human nature to live in the past — or the future — and we all could benefit greatly from living in the present, because that is where forgiveness actually takes place.
Digging further into the topic of forgiveness, I soon understood that this is an area that many of use have completely either downplayed or forgotten entirely. Somehow, we really don’t know how to deal with it. Some people are lucky and they learn to forgive early on in life, but for most people, being unable to forgive leaves a wound that reopens every time an incident happens in their lives that triggers something similar to what caused the wound in the first place.
Forgiveness has a bad aftertaste for most people — somehow, they associate it with being weak. After you finish reading this book you will have come to the understanding that it’s quite the opposite — forgiveness is an act of maturity, bravery and intelligence; most importantly, it is a direct connection to your heart. In essence, it is love itself.
For many, the topic of forgiveness has religious connotations. Some religions have actually been concerned with the philosophy and practice of forgiveness since their beginnings. Many people have been helped. However, as religions have evolved, there is often a shift from the inner Truth of the heart to the outer necessity of conforming to social standards and protocols. Forgiveness in these cases has usually turned into a set of rules, a methodology of doctrine that no longer serves to speak directly to the heart. Indeed, many people have left their religions as they have come to an understanding that universal spirituality is replacing doctrine. This opens the door to a world-wide agreement and alignment of what’s essential spiritually for every human being.
Forgiveness is one of the most important tasks we can undertake in our lives. Without forgiveness we are stuck in the past with little hope for the future. Even worse, we are stuck with our own resentment and anger for an entire lifetime.
There are many people that are, for whatever reasons, not willing to forgive, and they take their blame to the grave. They never learned how to forgive, and so were powerless to deal with their resentment, anger and blame towards themselves and others. The key to forgiveness is this: one must be willing to learn how to forgive in order to reap the benefits of its operation in one's life. It's the first step, and it is vital to the entire process.
We can choose our actions and by executing our choices, we change our own reality and that of others. But our choices may not always be in alignment with the choices of others. This simply leads to conflicts. It is part of human nature to experience these conflicts, otherwise we would never learn a thing and never grow up. Maturity in this way comes from learning how to eliminate conflict within ourselves as we experience conflict with others. The conflict is canceled out, within and without, and the stage is set for true forgiveness.
You can learn to forgive and you can learn why forgiveness is easier than you think. When you come to understand how an incident in your life causes you to be resentful and angry, you can switch your behavior almost like a light switch. Instead of continuing to blame, you can start the forgiveness process.
If you want to experience true happiness in your life, look no further on the outside. Happiness is achieved internally, not externally. You can achieve true happiness by eliminating any stories you keep alive from the past that may haunt you. You can confront these ghosts directly and when you face them, they evaporate into nothing — they simply disappear and you will no longer be haunted by your past, you will be more fully present in the now.
Thomas Herold
Founder & CEO, Dream Manifesto
Introduction
The 18th century poet Alexander Pope coined perhaps the most famous quote ever written regarding forgiveness when he wrote:
“To err is human, to forgive divine.”
Since we’ve all mastered the human tendency to err, this book will focus on the far more elusive divine art of forgiving. Although everyone is familiar with the concept of forgiveness, it can be extremely difficult in actual practice. Very few will learn how to overcome the obstacles that prevent genuine forgiveness and move on to a place of true happiness and peace.
If you read this book with an open mind and a willing heart, you will come away with the tools that you need to see through the deception of bitterness and ego to come to the point where you can genuinely forgive those who have hurt you. Once you are able to forgive, you are able to release the pain and hurt that can cling to you.
What Is Forgiveness?
Forgiveness starts with the act of forgiving or pardoning. Forgiving is not confined to one single act in as much as it is the cessation of ongoing negative patterns, such as being angry or resentful. Anger, resentment, and bitterness are powerful emotions that can seize control of a person with strongly negative effects on your attitude, relationships, and even your physical well-being.
Often, these negative feelings overwhelm us. It can feel as if we are drowning in our own negativity. Bitterness and resentment feed upon themselves, creating an ever widening circle of despair.
The good news is that there is a way out. You can break free of these negative emotions. When we forgive, we release the anger and give ourselves permission to be happy. Happiness is our natural state of being. When we are at harmony with our surroundings and ourselves, we will naturally tend toward happiness.
While external circumstances may cause a temporary interruption of our happiness, our reaction to the circumstances has far more control over our happiness in the long run. We can’t control the actions of other people. If we are honest in our assessment, we have to acknowledge that people are often mean, rude, thoughtless, and self-absorbed.
Given that we have to live among these thoughtless and mean creatures, it is a virtual certainty that we are going to be injured by their actions at some point. (Just as certain that we, being of the same type of self-absorbed creatures are going to injure others on occasion.) The surest road to overcoming circumstance and moving back to our intended state of happiness is through forgiveness.
In the chapters that follow, we will walk through some of the primary obstacles to forgiveness, the major results of holding onto our grudges, and the general process and many benefits of forgiveness.
Table of Contents
What Is Forgiveness? 5
My Personal Story 8
The Benefits of Not Forgiving 10
The Benefits of Forgiving Someone 12
The Benefits of Forgiving Yourself 15
Does Forgiveness Guarantee Reconciliation? 17
Why Do We Hold Grudges? 19
How Do We Know It’s Time to Embrace Forgiveness? 21
How Do We Reach a State of Forgiveness? 23
What Happe
ns If You Can’t Forgive Someone? 25
How Do You Know When you’ve Truly Forgiven Someone? 27
What If the Person You're Forgiving Doesn't Change? 29
What If You're the One Who Needs Forgiveness? 31
Breaking Free of the Chains of the Past 33
Breaking Free from Resentment with Forgiveness 35
True Forgiveness Is Your Choice 39
Self-Activate Forgiveness with Subliminal Healing Invocations 40
Chapter 1
My Personal Story
Betrayed! . . . I Thought I Would Never Trust Anyone Again
Several years ago, before I started my own business, I was working with a friend in Palo Alto. It was the golden age of Internet start-ups around the year 2000. My life was a mess at that time and I hardly had any money.
I wanted to have a piece of that same cake that was making others so rich. I called my friend and asked if I could work for him. We quickly came to an agreement on my salary and I booked a ticket with the last few dollars I had in my bank account.
Two weeks of hard but optimistic work zoomed by and I asked my friend for my paycheck. No such luck – he told me that he couldn’t pay me until his funding package came through, about $2M.
Another two weeks passed, and the excuse given this time was that he’d found a better option, about $5M waiting for final approvals by the angel investors. By the end of another month, I had not yet seen a dime. I was upset and discouraged, and felt betrayed by my friend.
I scraped together a few bucks and booked a flight back to my home in Hawaii, immediately beginning a program of constant phone calls to my friend, determined to collect what was due me. I talked to him several times, and then found out that he was on vacation in Hawaii.
Guess what? Now I was really pissed off! I hired a lawyer and tried to get my money back. It turned into a huge no-win situation in my life that ate up every ounce of joy and faith I once had in success. Every day I woke up and felt miserable.
My mind was like a magnet — stuck on loss and betrayal.
A few months later, another, wiser friend said something strange to me: "Can you forgive your friend?" For a moment I was puzzled.
Forgive . . . why should I? He should apologize and send me my money. My wiser friend added, "Nothing will ever change until you forgive him!"
Again, I felt all the hurt and pain well up. It felt like I was being slapped in the face. Then I asked the question, "How do I forgive?" I had no idea . . . I needed help.
Forgiveness can be difficult when the person who wronged us doesn’t seem to deserve our forgiveness — it’s hard to remember that forgiveness benefits the forgiver more than the one who is forgiven.
Three weeks later and $2100 lighter, I finally understood what my professional mentor wanted me to understand: forgiveness of others starts with ourselves — we have to find that place of forgiveness in ourselves that allows us to move through our pain and hurt. As soon as I started to forgive my friend, my anger and frustration miraculously began to dissolve, and . . .
I was finally free to move on with my life.
You would not believe how many people hold on to their resentment. My wife, Aviva, and I see this happening every day when we speak to people on the phone giving them a consulting session. Yes, I went on to help others with their own forgiveness challenges, and Aviva and I continue this service to this very day.
As you may know most of our customers want to fulfill their dreams by using one of our products — the Dream Manifestation Kit — to accomplish this. Aviva and I believe that most dreams begin with a simple act of forgiveness, and the the Dream Manifestation Kit is the perfect tool accomplish this.
People sometimes take their anger and resentment to the grave. What a waste of the wonderful life such persons could have had if they'd only known how to forgive! The grave is pretty final in many ways, both to the deceased and to the living. Friends and relatives that are left behind no longer have the chance to resolve their issues in person with the person who passed away.
Why not practice forgiveness while alive? Why not bestow that particular kind of grace on those who need it the most — while they are still alive and hoping for your forgiveness? The Dream Manifestation Kit provides a perfect way to begin your own practice of forgiveness today.
Chapter 1
The Benefits of Not Forgiving
"If we say that monsters [people who do terrible evil] are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have...they are given the power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered most. We give them power to condemn their victims to live forever with the hurting memory of their painful pasts. We give the monsters the last word."
- Lewis B. Smedes
There are so many benefits to forgiveness that one might wonder why it is so difficult for people to practice. Yet, we all struggle with it at times. The lure of choosing not to forgive is rooted in the perceived benefits of being a victim.
Taking the long-term view, there is little reason to not choose forgiveness. The alternative to bitterness and despair is really nothing that anyone would want to choose. But the-long term view is sometimes hard for us to clearly see. It can be obscured by the hurt and disappointment of the present moment.
If we ignore long-term consequences, playing the wounded and innocent victim may seem like the superior option to our injured pride and selfish ego. In the short term, playing the victim gives us the illusory comfort that comes with being in the right. The victim gets all the sympathy, stands on the moral high ground, and basks in the righteous anger of a person wronged.
Sympathy
Sometimes we just want to have someone tell us that it’s all OK, that we’re completely right, and that the other person was totally wrong in what they said or how they acted. A little sympathy can be a salve to emotional wounds, but it is not a cure.
Relying on sympathy when you are hurt is like continuing to take pain medicine for an infection when what you really need is an antibiotic. Sympathy, like the pain medicine, will dull the ache caused by your wound, but it won’t ever make it go away. It will never treat the root cause of the pain. The antibiotics will treat the actual cause of the problem and eliminate the pain that it causes you once and for all. Forgiveness is your emotional antibiotic.
Moral High Ground
It feels good to seize the moral high ground, to know that you are right while your opponent is an agent of evil. No one wants to be the bad guy. In fact, the worst person you meet today probably thinks that he’s a swell guy. Demonizing the person who offended you is a way of seizing that high ground and feeling good about yourself.
But, just like you learned in kindergarten, you can never build yourself up by putting others down. In this case, you cannot be a better person by casting the other person as being bad. You may feel that way for a while, but it won’t last long. The short-term benefit of being a victim never lasts.
Righteous Anger
Sometimes, in the moment, anger just feels good. It inspires us and puts a fire in our belly. In that short term, we fail to see that trap into which that anger pulls us. Instead of working through the hurt, we dwell in it, giving the anger control over our hearts and our actions. Soon, we live in that angry place because we cannot remember how it felt to be happy. Soon, anger may begin to feel more natural to us than happiness, and we may do little, if anything at all, to change this state of affairs into a healthier one.
The anger fuels us. We forget how to function without it and we even embrace it because it keeps us going. But if anger is the thing that keeps us going, we are going in the wrong direction. Movement does not always equal progress. We lose sight of our intended state of happiness and find ourselves drifting farther and farther from it. If anger becomes the compass by which we direct out lives, it is time to turn the ship around.
Chapter 2:
The Benefits of Forgiving Someone
“Forgiveness is almost a selfish act
- Lawana Blackwell
When we move past the temptation of playing the victim, we can begin the process of forgiving the person who caused the offense. There are many different types of situations that will cause hurt and require forgiveness. The types of offenders needing forgiveness generally fall into three distinct categories: contrite, unrepentant, and unavailable. Reaching the point of forgiving each comes with its own special benefits.
Contrite Offenders
Sometimes good people do bad things. Sometimes bad people turn good. In either case, there are occasions in which a person does something to hurt you and afterward feels genuinely sorry for his actions. When the offender is contrite, forgiveness is easier to come by. A contrite offender will many times actually ask for forgiveness, or at least leave an open door. In these cases, you benefit by bringing closure to the incident and letting go of all ill will toward the person who hurt you.
The offender benefits when you forgive him as well. He knows that he did the wrong thing and your forgiveness gives him permission to release his own guilt and focus on the future, rather than his past indiscretion. A contrite offender recognizes his own need to be forgiven and gains immediate rewards when he overtly receives that forgiveness.